


Hammer and Sword

by Nell65



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Modern AU, canon 'verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-01-05 04:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nell65/pseuds/Nell65
Summary: I came across a prompt list for pairings, ask for a pair and a prompt number and you get it - but I don't have many followers on tumblr, and I only really feel like writing Raven Reyes these days in any case. But I'm coming off some longer things and wanted the challenge of trying shorter ficlets again. So I assigned prompts to myself!





	1. Shoes and Ships and Strangers in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Raven was inside her pod, pulling wires, and then…. here._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Your breathing changed. So I know you’re awake.” It was a man’s voice, low and rough. “I know you’re thinking about screaming. Go ahead. There’s no one nearby to hear you.”_

_Canonverse AU, Ice Mechanic, Ca. S1.11_

Raven came awake with a start. Her heart was pounding in her ears, adrenaline surging in her chest, and the need to fight or flee swamped all her senses.

Because she could barely move. Her hands were bound behind her back and there was another rope around her chest securing her arms to her sides. Her ankles were secured and so were her knees. Whoever had tied her up had made a very thorough job of it. And the ties binding her arms and legs were cruelly tight. 

She bit back the scream building in her lungs, some desperate bit of sanity prompting her not to let her captors know she was awake. Not until she’d had time to assess her situation.

She could smell wood smoke drifting from behind her, and hear the faint crackling of a small fire. She was lying on her side, her face pressed into damp organic-smelling leaves and dirt.  It was full on night now, and not the late afternoon she remembered last. In the dim orange glow of the campfire she could just make out the trunks of trees and more trees, as far as she could see. She must have been carried deep into the forest, leaving the wide clearing by her drop pod far behind.

Once she stopped straining, she also realized the bindings weren’t as tight as she’d thought at first, coming awake in a panic. Her circulation was fine, she could feel her fingertips and her toes.

The last thing she could remember was stripping her pod of every last usable bit she could pull from the wreckage, sure that whatever she and Monty couldn’t use now to build more radios she would use later for something else.

Bellamy had told her to wait and take a guard with her. But the last thing she’d wanted was some terrified trigger-happy fifteen-year-old delinquent ‘watching her back.’ She’d left before the kid had turned up. It wasn’t like screwing Bellamy, however unsatisfyingthat had turned out to be, had made him the boss of her anyhow. 

She’d just really needed some alone time. Away time. Away from Finn. Away from Clarke. Away from Bellamy. Away from the camp. Away, away, away. Not permanently, nothing like that. Bellamy had convinced her she needed to stay. But she needed to be alone for a little while. Ripping the guts out of the pod seeemed like a nice substitute for ripping the guts out Finn. Finn, who had gone out ‘hunting’ with Clarke Griffin.

Her pod had dropped on the opposite side of the delinquents’ camp from the grounders, so she’d thought she’d be safe enough for an hour or so. It was late in the day, but not that late. She’d had hours left of daylight. And she wasn’t a complete idiot! She’d brought a gun with her.

God only knew what had happened to it.

To her utter vexation, she had no memory of being grabbed.

She was inside the pod, pulling wires, and then…. here.

“Your breathing changed. So I know you’re awake.” It was a man’s voice, low and rough. “I know you’re thinking about screaming. Go ahead. There’s no one nearby to hear you.”

Raven froze, then rocked back and forth for a moment in what turned out to be a futile attempt to roll over. She finally gave up and said, “Help me sit up, so at least I can see you.”

She heard a faint shuffling of leaves, and then she was effortlessly hoisted upright and into a sitting position by the rope around her back. Then she was spun roughly around on her ass to face the fire.

When the man dropped back and squatted down onto his heels in front of her, he was little more than a looming outline between her and the light. She could barely make him out. 

“Better?” he asked.

“You know it’s not.”

“Just wait. Your eyes will adjust.”

Already she could make out more of him. His hair was a wild mess below the tight rows of small twists across the top that held it out of his eyes. More or less. He didn’t seem to spend a lot of time on upkeep. She was pretty sure she could see twigs and bits of leaf in the uncombed mass, along with a few skinny braids and what looked like a couple of random stone beads. Or, at least what she hoped were beads, and not, like, bugs or something. Or even, she shuddered to herself, bone fragments.

A great beak of a nose dominated what she could make out of his face. It was slightly off center, but so wide and straight he could have modeled in profile for an ancient coin. It gave him a presence and an authority that was, Raven felt, entirely unearned. And yet disconcertingaly real. A dark beard, as scruffy and unkempt as his hair, covered his cheeks and jaw.

He seemed to be wearing the same broken-in bulky layers that Octavia’s grounder wore. Raven could definitely see the smooth hilt of a big machete poking above his shoulder. His hands, large and square, dangled loosely from his wrists as he leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees. He was balanced easily on the balls of his feet, ready to move in an instant.

Everything about him radiated a sense of barely-leashed violence.

“What do you want?” she asked, fighting to control her breathing and hoping he couldn’t hear the wild thumping of her heart.

“You seem to know something of machines. I have a machine I need help with.”

“What?”

This was so bizarre she thought at first she must have misheard him. Though he spoke perfectly clear standard English, same as anyone born and raised on the Ark. So that wasn’t likely. But still, “Why would I help you?” she demanded. She was aware, in some distant part of her brain, that challenging a violent grounder wasn’t the smartest thing in the world. But she was quite unable to help herself. Flight was out of the question, so fight it was.

“Because it’s the friendly thing to do?”

“And you’re so very friendly, aren’t you,” she sneered. “What with the knocking me out, tying me up, and kidnapping me.”

“I couldn’t risk you screaming earlier, or fighting. Too many others around to hear.”

“And now?”

“Now we’re several miles away.”

She raised her chin. “My friends will track me.”

“They have other problems at the moment. A Trikru warband is gathering to attack your camp. And it seems the Mountain Men have decided to hunt you as well.”

“Who the fuck are the Mountain Men?”

“They live in Mount Weather, and come out periodically to defend their territory from the Trikru. And now, it seems, from your people as well.”

“What?" she cried. She struggled again against her ropes, a fresh surge of panic roaring through her bloodstream. And not for herself. For all those stupid kids at the drop ship. God only knew how Bellamy would keep them from panicking and doing something stupid. He needed all the help he could get. "I have to get back!”

Her captor remained maddeningly calm. “You help me, I’ll let you go,” he said.

Raven stilled, gathering her wits about her. She’d need to be at her sharpest to make a deal with a stranger like this, need every skill learned dealing on the Ark’s black market. Starting with paying close attention to what he’d said, and asking questions from there.

That’s when it landed. “Why aren’t you getting ready to attack our drop ship?”

“I’m not Trikru,” he replied, turning his head toward the firelight and lifting the mass of hair away from his temple and his cheek. It took her a moment to realize he was showing her a cleanly drawn scar. No. Not a scar. A raised ritual mark, the heavy scar tissue in place of the more familiar tattoos.

“I’m Azgeda,” he told her, “which is further to the north and west. We have no quarrel with people from space. That’s a Trikru superstition. Though,” he shrugged, “we’d definitely steal your ship to strip for usable metals.”

“Is everyone on the ground an asshole?” This was less strategy on Raven’s part and more an honest snarl of frustration.

He actually chuckled. “Pretty much.”

“Including you, obviously.”

“Obviously. Are you going to help me with my machine?”

“Where is it?”

He stood up and stepped out of her way, tilting his head across the small fire. His movement revealing that they were camped in a clearing, not actually under the trees that stopped just at her back. “Right there.”

Raven could hardly believe she hadn’t noticed it yet. On the other side of the little camp, its deep matte finish helping it to blend into the dark trees beyond, was thoroughly functional-looking utility vehicle. Unlike the rusted out hulks they’d occasionally passed in the woods, this one was all in one piece and still rode proudly on its big tires. Big tires that were resting on what she could see now was actually an ancient roadbed. One that must predate the cataclysm itself.

Quite unable to take her eyes off the vehicle, she asked him, “Why do you need my help with it?”

“I stole it. I was able to come this far, but then it cut off and rolled to a stop. I don’t know why.”

When she finally looked back at him, he was still standing quietly, watching her. She raised her brow at him. “Did you break it?”

“I don’t think so.” He seemed unruffled by her implied accusation.

“Where are the owners? Why can’t you ask them?”

“The two men who were with it are dead. So I went hunting for someone else. You seemed familiar enough with the machine you were disassembling. I thought you could help.”

“Did you kill them?” she asked.

“Yes. I didn’t intend to. I was going to make them tell me how it worked. But when I took off their facemasks…. they died.”

“Facemasks? Like those Trikru fright masks?” Raven was baffled, trying to imagine how taking one of those off would kill someone.

“No. It covered their full face, kept them from breathing in their sleep fog. The fog they used to knock out a friend of yours.”

“What?”

He didn’t crack a smile, but somehow managed to imply a wide smirk at her expense. “Did I mention that yet?”

“No!”

“I have a friend of yours, from your camp. In the machine. Another reason you’ll help me. I’ll give him back to you once you do.”

“Fine. Show me.” Because, she pointed out to herself, it wasn’t like she had a better option at the moment. And she should find out whom else he’d grabbed.

None of which had anything to do with her burning curiosity about his stolen _machine._

He leaned down, hefting her up onto his shoulders as he straightened, her head dangling towards the ground.

“If you cut the ties I could walk!” she cried. To his elbow. His machete, she discovered as her head bobbed with his steps, was really long enough to probably qualify for ‘sword’ status.

“Or you could run,” he replied. “In the dark. Chasing you down would be too much work and you could fall and break a bone.”

“I’ll need my hands.”

“Eventually. After we have a deal.”

He dropped his shoulder and dumped her onto her feet, holding her steady with his hands on her arms as he twisted her around to face the vehicle. She was right next to one of the front doors. In the dark. She couldn’t make out a thing of the interior, only see her dim outline, limned by the firelight and reflected back at her in the tinted window glass.

“Light?” she asked, letting all the disdain she was capable of flavor her voice.

He opened the door and reached inside, pulling out a big handheld flashlight. Switching it on, he played it across the interior.

“Is that yours?” she asked, her disbelief fully apparent in her voice.

“No,” he replied cheerfully. “Found it in the machine.”

Raven was fascinated and excited despite her shitty situation. “Cut the damn ties. I won’t run. I want to look at this.”

“Just to be clear,” he said, his arm swooping around her waist and half-hoisting her onto his hip, half-dragging her around to peer into one of the back windows. Then he yanked open the other rear door and played the light over a still figure, bound the same way she was, and gagged, but clearly out cold.

She immediately recognized the dark thatch of hair poking out above the gag. “Monty!” she cried. Then she turned on their captor to demand, “Why hasn’t he woken up?”

“They shot him with something. Some drug I assume. After they used the sleep fog.”

“Why didn’t you go to sleep?”

“I was luckily upwind of them. They didn’t see me coming. Too interested in your friend.”

“Where are they now?”

He leaned over to scoop her up onto his hip again, and dragged her around to the far side of truck. Using the flashlight, he showed her two dumped bodies, clothed in patched hazmat suits, oxygen tanks still on their backs, the face masks pulled away. In the quick play of the light, their skin looked blistered and burned.

“Who are they?” she asked, having so far never seen anyone like them on the ground.

“Mountain Men. They hunt and steal people. Mostly Trikru, but anyone they can find they’ll take.”

“Why?”

“No one knows. Some they turn into beasts. Most are never seen again. They’re hunting you and yours now.”

“Turn into beasts?” She didn’t hide her skepticism.

“The Trikru call them Reapers. Changed men who behave like animals, grunting and screaming instead of talking, fighting without mercy or care for themselves, even eating the dead. Men who turn on their own people, on their own families, and carry them off in the night, never to be seen again. Hundreds of men have been lost to this fate in the last generations.”

Raven shivered. There was real anger in her captor’s voice, on behalf of the changeling men. And something that sounded a hell of a lot like disgust. Or even grief. Whoever these Mountain Men were, she sure as hell didn’t want to tangle with them. But if they’d already tried to take Monty, the Mountain Men might not give them any choice.

“If I help you, you’ll give me Monty back, and let us leave? Let us get back to warn our friends about this new threat?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have any quarrel with you or your people.”

“Who do you have quarrels with?” He definitely seemed like a guy who’d have quarrels with people.

“Trikru. Mountain Men.” After a slight pause he lifted the corner of his mouth. “My mother.”

Raven smirked despite herself. “I didn’t like my mom much, either.”

This time he actually smiled, which made his eyes crinkle up quite attractively. “Do we have a deal?”

“Deal.”

“Don’t break your word,” he warned her, “I’ll kill your friend, if you don’t keep your promise.”

“And we were getting on so well.” She clung to bravado, and tried to ignore the icy fingers of dread crawling on her back.

He just shrugged, then stepped behind her and with a few quick tugs, pulled out knots and loosened the ropes around her chest and knees, letting them fall to the ground at her feet. Then he released her hands.

“My feet?” she reminded him.

He scooped up his ropes and stepped back. “You can do that one.”

“Hmmph,” she snorted, and let go her quick dream of landing a kick on the side of his jaw. She guessed he’d seen that movie too. Or heard the tale. Or however grounders learned.

Once she had her feet free she held out her hand. “Give me the light.”

The first thing she did was clamber into the back of the vehicle to check on Monty. Who was, as their captor had said, sleeping. His pulse was steady and strong, and he was snoring.

Only after that did she move to the front to examine the controls.

After she’d figured out how to pop the hood, crawled up to look at the roof and then back down to the controls again, ignoring the bodies the whole time, did she return to her captor. “Okay. It runs off a solar powered battery system, and it’s completely drained. You need daylight to recharge.”

“That’s it?”

“Until there’s enough light to give it enough juice to turn it on? Yeah. That’s it. I won’t know until then if there’s anything else wrong.”

He frowned dramatically. “Stuck here until morning.”

“Yep,” she agreed. “Though I did find these. One on Monty and one under the hood.” She held up the two small beacons.

“What are these?”

“Radio transmitters. Beacons that send out a signal they can pick up and track. They intend to recover their lost property.”

“That’s bad.” He cocked his head, “Clever, though. Will smashing them help?”

“Yeah. Can I have the parts?”

He took the beacons, dropped them on a rock and smashed them quite thoroughly with another rock. Then he scooped up the sad bits and offered them to her. “Still want them?”

She held out her hand and he dumped in the small pile of plastic. Poking through it gently with her finger, she told him, “In the morning I’ll see if there’s anything left I can use.”

“I’m going to have to tie you back up,” he said, and before she could react he’d caught her upper arm and dragged her back to the fire, forcing her down to her knees. The rope from her ankles was waiting, neatly coiled.

“Please,” she said, panic building in her chest. “I gave you my word.”

“I need to sleep. I don’t trust you for that.” He backed up a few steps to collect the rest of his neatly coiled ropes. “Tie your ankles.”

“No!”

“You can fight me, but you’ll lose. And you’ll get hurt.”

Panic led her right back to bravado. “Come over here and make me.”

He sighed heavily, watching her with narrowed eyes, then he leaned down and scooped up a stick the size of her forearm from the fire and, with a sudden jerk, released and sent it whirling toward her.

She recoiled and flung up her arm, but nowhere near fast enough. The slightly charred log slammed into her shoulder. It hurt like a mother.

“Ouch!!!” she cried, clapping her hand over the impact bruise.

Too late she realized that it was a stratagem. The man caught her opposite shoulder, flipping her onto her belly while he wrenched her arms around behind her back and tied her wrists, not at all gently.

Then, with his knee in the small of her back holding her down, he pulled her feet up one at the time and stripped off her boots and socks. The evening chill on her tender soles made her swear and call him more names.

When he moved off her, she scrambled to sit up and turned in time to see him tying her boot laces together, stuff her socks inside, and then fling them up to catch them over a tree branch.

“Hey!!”

“I didn’t tie your ankles. But you’re not going far in the woods at night on feet like those.”

“You are a fucking asshole.”

“You already told me that.”

He dropped the charred log onto the fire before settling down on his back, his sword flat on his chest, hilt under his hand, and closed his eyes.

Raven was far too wired to even pretend to sleep. How far could she get on bare feet? Far enough to take the boots off one of the dead mountain men?

She focused entirely on listening to the man’s breathing. Eventually, how much later she had no idea, it deepened and slowed down, enough for her to decide it was now or never. She rolled to her feet as silently as she could and began to creep away.

Four steps later she stepped on what felt like an actual spike, driving it deep into the bottom of her foot. Jerking up threw her off balance, but with her hands tied she had to way to stop her fall. She skinned her knee, bruised her shoulder and banged her forehead, ripping her trousers in the bargain. With the help of a tree trunk she eventually got to her feet and limped back to the fire. The damp ground was fucking freezing and she thought her feet might fall off from cold alone, even if she hadn’t sliced the one all the hell up. She thought hard about crying as she dropped back to the ground.

Her captor opened one eye. “Told you so.”

“It hurts.”

“How deep is it?”

“Don’t know.”

He sighed heavily, then pushed himself up, grabbed his pack and crossed over to kneel at her side. “If you kick me? I will break one of your toes. Got it?”

“Got it,” she muttered resentfully.

Raven had very sensitive, ticklish feet, an impulse to jerk away from being touched she could barely control. Finn used to tease her that way. Sitting on her legs and tickling her feet until she gave in to whatever he wanted.

So naturally she flinched hard, jerking her foot out of her captor’s hands when he first ran his fingers down her arch. “Sorry!” she cried, terrified he might actually for real break her toe for this. “I can’t help it. My feet are really sensitive.”

He turned his head slowly, his expression hard to read by the dying embers of the fire, but she thought he was amused. “I can tell. Your toes are safe. For now.”

Her captor had big hands, but he was slow and careful. More careful than Finn, once he realized how sensitive her feet were. His hands were also warm, and when he engulfed her injured foot inside his palms, heating her skin all the way to the bones, she actually felt some tension leak out of her back and arms.

“It’s a simple puncture. You must have stepped on a broken root, or maybe an old steel wire. There’s a lot of that along the edges of the old roads. The cut’s not too big, and it should heal quickly. But you need to keep it clean. This is going to sting.” And when he poured the alcohol on, it did indeed sting like hell. But he was holding her foot steady in one hand, and while she wiggled and hissed, she didn’t have the uncontrollable need to wrench her foot from his grasp.

“Fair warning,” he continued, after setting her foot down gently, “the mountain men’s bodies are deteriorating quickly. Their boots will need to be cleaned before you stick an open wound inside one.”

She glared at him.

He smirked back at her.

“Your feet are like ice,” he added, his smirk fading, picking up her uninjured foot and gently chaffing her skin, warming it up too. “Do you have a circulation problem?”

“No! You threw my socks over a tree branch. Idiot.”

“I told you not to run, and you did. Idiot.”

Raven amped up her glare.

He ignored her, setting her foot down and standing up. “Get closer to the fire and choose how you want to sleep. I recommend with the heat at your back.”

She did as he told her, and then, to her surprise, he shoved an armful of loose leaves over her bare feet, packing them around her halfway up her calves. “It’s not a blanket but it will keep you warm enough.”

She actually did fall asleep for a time, waking only with the pre-dawn damp, the lightening sky leaching color from the world and turning everything a silvery grey. Her captor was gone, and for a brief moment she was thrilled. Then he reappeared from behind his stolen truck.

He offered her breakfast, a handful of some sort of dried meat, chopped so fine it was hard to chew, and a cup of surprisingly strong tea brewed over the revived fire. Then he knocked down her boots and gave her one. No socks. “For your injured foot,” he said. “You get the rest back when I leave.”

She offered him another glare, but it was her weakest effort yet and he didn’t seem in the least aware of her attempt.

In the growing light of day she couldn’t help but notice that under the wild hair and the beads (they were, thankfully, just shiny wooden beads) and the split eyebrow and the scraggily beard, he had nice eyes. A bright warm blue. And his deep voice was nice, too.

The Rover – the name was printed on the steering column – had already begun charging in the faint pre-dawn light. Once the sun reached them, it began charging quite quickly. As soon it reached a quarter full, she tried the start button. The engine turned over immediately, a pleasant and, to her ear, well-maintained hum.

With the vibration of the quietly rumbling engine to disturb him, Monty finally woke up. Raven knew this because he started thrashing wildly in panic.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she crooned once she reached him, her hand on his hair. “Monty, it’s me. Raven. We’re okay for now. We’re just helping this grounder guy for a bit.”

Monty’s eyes were huge.

The back door wrenched open and their captor was standing there. “You’re awake,” he said. “Good. I was starting to wonder if the drug required a second drug to counteract the first.”

He dragged Monty out and propped him sitting up against a tree, where he finally took the gag away. Raven followed them out and sat down to explain to a frantic and angry Monty the nature of the deal she’d struck with the man from Azgeda, about the Mountain Men, about the new threats they faced. Like her, Monty remembered nothing about being grabbed. One moment he was walking along in the woods, testing the new radio with Octavia back at the drop ship, worried about the static, then he was here. Now.

Raven helped him drink the last of the tea. There was, apparently, no more dried meat on offer. Even when she asked directly.

Meanwhile, their captor had been methodically stripping the bodies of the Mountain Men of their clothes and gear. He kept almost everything, leaving them only their underclothing. Their bodies were nearly as blistered as their faces, as if they’d burned as much from the inside out as the outside in.

“Radiation,” Monty said, watching the grounder work. “That’s incredibly severe radiation poisoning. How fast did they die?”

Their captor decided to hear and respond to this question. “They passed out in a minute or less after I took their masks. Maybe another half-an-hour until their hearts stopped. My arrows had already damaged their suits, though. So I’m not sure which was the more important cause.”

After that Raven did another round of checks on the Rover, still rumbling away while it continued to charge in the full sun of early morning. She used the maintenance manual she’d found in a storage compartment, squealing in delight when she did. It had been carefully laminated so as to preserve the ancient paper. It had illustrations as well as words, so she was able to talk her captor through the basic steps of charging and maintaining the vehicle, explaining the illustration and then walking him through it pointing out the actual engine parts. Waiting until he nodded and repeated it back to her before she moved on. She was also jealous as fuck.

“How come you get to keep this?” she whined after she let the hood drop down again. “It’s way too good for you.”

“Because I stole it, fair and square,” he replied. “Unless,” he paused, clearly trying to decide if he wanted to commit to whatever he said next. He squared up his very broad shoulders and committed. “Unless you’d like to come with me. Your people probably won’t make it long, between the Trikru and the Mountain Men.”

For one terrible minute, less than a minute, thirty seconds tops, Raven was tempted to go with him. Then she shook her head sharply. “No,” she said. “No, I can’t. They need all the help they can get.”

He nodded. “Understood. And you’re right. You’re up against more than you can handle.”

“You could come help us?”

“One more warrior won’t make any difference. You need something else, something bigger, to swing the balance.”

“That’s why I have to go back. I’ll be the difference. Me and Monty,” she added, in case Monty could hear them.

Their captor nodded again, then turned and collected the last of his gear and tossed it into the back of the Rover.

“Where are you headed?” she asked him.

“This road heads south, and then I’ll catch up with an old road that cuts west through the mountains. Far away from the Mountain Men.”

“Good luck.”

“You too,” he said. “Remember their weakness. The air kills them. That must be why they all still live holed up inside their mountain.”

“Any weakness among the Trikru?” Monty called out.

“Their concept of battle tactics is to yell loudly and charge, and if they sense fear they’ll rip out your throats. But it’s not that difficult to outthink them. Take advantage of the terrain. Do almost anything other than run or yell back.”

“You’re just going to leave us here like this?” Raven asked. “Knowing that more mountain men could be headed this way?”

“Oh,” he said. “Here,” he turned and fished out a small duffle from the back. “Your boot and your socks. And your guns.” He turned and flung the duffle down a short ravine into an old drainage ditch. When he turned back his eyes were on hers, and the expression on his face was both curious and kind. “Take care of yourself, Raven.”

Then he climbed into the Rover.

“How do you know my name?” Raven called out.

“Monty,” he replied, closing the door and shifting into gear.

“What’s yours?” she yelled, feeling that there ought to balance.

He stuck his head out of the window as he pulled away and yelled, “Banau.”

Raven and Monty made it back to the drop ship in surprisingly short time by sticking to the old road, arriving just in time to halt a frantic search party from chasing after them. They were both distressed to learn that Clarke and Finn were still missing, and quite alarmed that Octavia had already confirmed their news.

The Trikru were definitely coming to kill them.

“If they can,” Raven said, remembering Banau’s advice. _Don’t yell back. Don’t run. Use the terrain_. “I agree with Bellamy. I think we can hold here. I can make mines, Monty can make more radios, Jasper, more gunpowder.”

They would stand and they would hold. The Trikru had no fucking clue what they’d come up against the day they decided to come for her and her friends.

~~~~

It was only long afterward, after so many terrible things had swept over them, taking more of their people with every wave, that Raven had the chance to tell anyone the full story.

She and Gina were exploring the now-empty Mount Weather, part of a scavenging squad from Arkadia, when they discovered a handful of Rovers and trucks. They were parked in a garage below the central maintenance rooms and just beyond a previously unopened airlock.

Sitting inside one of the Rovers, her hands on the surprisingly familiar steering wheel, Raven let herself remember the whole of her adventure with her captor for the first time in months. Without fully willing it, the unabridged story, finally complete with his offer to take her away with him, and her moment of wavering to actually consider it, spilled out of her for the very first time.

Gina sat transfixed. Her eyes wide with shock, gasping in dismay at the more dangerous bits, and exclaiming over and over in amazement, “Raven! I can’t believe you never told anyone!”

“We did! We totally did!” Raven assured her. “But the Trikru were about to attack and Murphy tried to murder Bellamy and shot me and we lost Finn and Clarke and then you all showed up, and then Mount Weather...” She raised her hands helplessly. “It just didn’t seem all that important. Just some lone Azgeda, out for whatever he could steal for himself.”

Gina frowned. “You know, if you’d taken him up on the offer, you might never have been shot.”

“I know.” There had been, still were, bad nights when Raven had this exact same thought. She told Gina what she always told herself. “But, I was needed at the drop ship. So I went back. I couldn’t abandon Monty, and Jasper, and the rest.”

The next time she saw Lincoln, Raven casually asked him if he’d ever met someone named Banau.

"Banau," he repeated, looking at her strangely. "That means 'the banished one'."

“Hmph,” Raven snorted, mocking herself for her resurgent interest in the Azgedan thief. “So he lied about his name.”

“It’s not a lie,” Lincoln said, “It’s… those who are banished have to reclaim their names and restore their own honor. Until they do, Banau is their name.” He frowned. “When did you meet a banished one?”

“Long time back, before the attack on the drop ship. Monty and I were grabbed by an Azgeda to help him get his stolen Rover running again. Once we’d helped him, he left.”

“He stole a working Rover from the Mountain Men?”

“Yeah! He did. And saved Monty from them. At least for a few more days, anyway.”

“Not bad,” Lincoln nodded his approval. “That took skill and bravery.”

He’d had both, thought Raven as she walked away, skill and bravery. And a blithe disregard for the kind of risks that made most people decide to keep their heads down and walk quickly in the other direction. She wondered if he’d ever restore his honor or reclaim his name, or if she'd ever learn of it if he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first prompt. "Come over here and make me."
> 
> I didn't hold it to less than 2000 words, my goal, but it's still a one-shot, and less than 6000 words. So, a good beginning.


	2. It's a Waterfall!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Raven was reclining on one of a pair of wooden chaises, her leg-brace on the ground beside her, basking in a patch of late-in-the-day sun. She’d set up a small cooler between the chairs, the long brown necks of beer bottles poking out of an ice bucket sitting on top, and all she needed now was for Roan to join her._

Raven tightened the last fitting with another quick spin of her wrench, careful not to overstress the threads. 

Sitting back, she brushed away the sweat dripping off her brow with her arm, not wanting to strip off her work gloves just yet. Summer was persisting through September, and the temperatures remained unseasonably, unreasonably, hot. 

“Okay,” she called out to Jasper. “Turn on the water.”

“Water’s on!” He yelled a minute later.

Raven shoved herself to her feet and opened the spigots. Water gushed just as it was supposed to. “Excellent! Come see!” she cried.

“High five,” said Jasper when he joined her, a huge grin on his face as they slapped hands, finishing with a quick fist bump as they admired their work. 

“Everything set up?” She nodded her chin in the direction of the small lawn between her back fence and the townhouse while closing off the water.

“Done and dusted. Emori already took off with all the tools to take them back to the shop. She promised to make sure everything was locked up before she left.”

They stepped out from behind the trellis walls they’d spent the day installing, and Raven slowly circled the small yard, taking it all in, before she turned to Jasper and beamed. “Everything looks awesome. Thank you.”

“You are the boss. We aim to please and impress.” Jasper blew across his fingernails, then dusted them on his filthy tee shirt. It really had been a hot, dirty day. “One advertisement-worthy camping spread, just for you.”

“Yeah.” Raven narrowed her eyes. “You’d almost think you’d done this setup before.”

“Ha, ha. I’m still sorry we lost your grill when we borrowed your camping gear last month. But the replacement is better than the one we lost. Promise.”

Jasper and his friends had borrowed the camping gear because Raven hadn’t been able to use it this summer. Not-camping wasn’t a huge loss for her, but it had been hard on Roan. Being in the woods cleared his head, and kept him sharp. Not going had left him somehow both antsy and dulled.

“Hmmph,” Raven said. “It better be. I dropped serious bucks at the fancy butcher for the steaks.”

“Only the best for your bae, right?” Jasper made kissy noises. 

Raven rolled her eyes. “For both of us, you dork.” She checked the time. “I’ve got about forty-five more minutes to finish getting set up. Thanks for everything, and scram.”

“You got it, boss.”

Raven’s phone vibrated. After a quick glance at the text, she headed for the patio door. “He’s on his way home. You were awesome. Everything is great. Now beat it. Seriously. Vamoose.” She waved her hands at him as he stood there staring at her with a stupid leer on his face, “Shoo.”

Jasper touched his forehead with two fingers, a mock salute, then finally left.

~~~~

Roan tossed his keys on the entry table and his blazer over the back of the sofa, glad to finally be in the cool air-conditioned quiet after a hellacious commute. The freeways had been packed with people desperate to get away from the city heat for the weekend. 

“Raven?” he called, leaning over the banister to look up the stairs, “I’m home.”

There was no answer from the floor above, so he headed for the kitchen at the back. She wasn’t there either.

He was just about to try upstairs again when an unexpected splash of color in the backyard caught his eye and he wandered over to the window to investigate. 

That’s when he found her.

She was stretched out on one of a pair of wooden chaises, her leg-brace on the ground beside her, basking in a patch of late-in-the-day sun. She’d set up a small cooler between the chairs, the long brown necks of beer bottles poking out of an ice bucket sitting on top, obviously waiting for him to join her.

Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, and the crimson paint on her toenails was glossy in the sun. She was wearing her deep red bikini, the one with the strings that tugged loose so easily, and the warm copper tones of her skin glowed in the early evening light. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on her chest and her belly, and he could just make out the thin gold chain that rested between her breasts, a gift from him on her last birthday. 

His fingertips and palms were already tingling with anticipation. He knew the silky texture of Raven’s skin better than he knew his own, and he could almost taste her faintly salty sweat and hear her breathy sighs. His heart was doing that strange thing where it felt smaller and larger all at once. So full of love and pride and desire, yet pinched tightly by an all too-heightened awareness of human fragility. His own, of course, but mostly hers. She’d had two more surgeries just this past summer. The car accident she’d been in during college had become the nightmare gift that would not stop giving.

For about half a second he considered running upstairs to change his clothes before he went out to join her. But then she shifted, abs flexing, her full soft breasts swaying as she arched her back to rock sideways to slide her hips into a more comfortable spot, lifting her knee to rest her foot against the pale canvas cushions.

He headed for the patio door.

~~~~

The direction of her gaze protected by her sunglasses, Raven watched Roan through the kitchen window, peering out her with the small sweet smile he seldom let anyone see. She shifted position, sucking in her gut to let her abs show, and careful to let her tits jiggle as she moved. She didn’t quite flash him, but let her raised knee remind him of the possibility.

He promptly vanished, and then reappeared at the patio door. 

She watched him rattle down the patio steps to the yard, sure that the smirk on his lips mirrored the one on hers. She knew it was what was on the inside that mattered. She fully believed this. In the end, character and heart were far more important than the all-too breakable shells humans were stuck with. 

But this conviction did nothing at all to counter the overwhelming sense of pride and satisfaction that flooded her every time she had the opportunity to admire Roan in motion.

His work clothes, such as they were – he’d moved up to not-scuffed boots and shirts with buttons and collars after his mother’s death had left him in charge of their company, but he hadn’t yet given up on jeans – might hide the sharp definition of the muscles underneath, but they couldn’t disguise his confidence in his own body, or the easy athleticism of his movements. 

Or quiet that little thrill that ran across her shoulders every time she thought, _he comes home to me, looking like that, and grinning like I’m the best thing he’s going to eat tonight._

_Which I am._

~~~~

As attractive and enticing as cold beer and the beautiful and brilliant Raven Reyes wearing a red bikini were, it was neither of those that had initially caught Roan’s eye from the kitchen window. 

Instead it was the orange and red dome of their tent. It had been set up just behind her, nearly filling the rest of small open yard between the fences and the plantings. As he came down the back stairs, Roan could see through the zipped netting door what looked like all the rest of their gear inside. Even their camping packs.

Her sunglasses may have hidden Raven’s eyes, but her happy, smug grin was fully on display. “Hey,” she said as he drew closer, the low rasp of her voice vibrating down his spine, straight to his dick.

He was grinning back at her, hadn’t stopped grinning in anticipation since he first saw her. 

“Backyard camping?” he said, dropping down to sit next to her legs, and leaning in to press his lips to hers, easy and gentle and almost chaste. It was the weekend and there was no need to rush. He’d learned some time ago to cultivate patience. The rewards – for both of them – were more than worth the effort.

“Yep!” she replied, once he sat up again, her hand drifting down his chest to rest comfortably high on his thigh. “Backyard camping.” She pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, and her expression shifted to serious and a bit hesitant. 

“I know all of our planned camping trips got borked this summer, what with one thing and another.” Her faint shrug standing for things she preferred to dismiss. “And then you were totally bummed when your guys-only fishing trip crashed and burned. So, I thought…. why not camp right here? I know it’s not the same…”

He cut her off, leaning in to kiss her again, harder and with greater purpose. Their camping trips had fallen to her surgeries, and those were so much more important. “It’s perfect.”

~~~~

Roan pulled away from her and stood up. “I’m going to go change and I’ll be right back…”

Raven caught his fingers to stop him, curling the tips of hers around his and holding him still. “I’ve got your stuff inside the tent. We’re camping.” Raven paused to flutter her eyelashes meaningfully. “In a place we’ve never camped before. My end-of-summer surprise camping trip.” 

Raven was reasonably sure he’d catch on. He wasn’t much drawn to role-play, but he knew she was. Long periods of recuperation and immobility after the accident, and since, had given her ample time to exercise her imagination. 

He was however very drawn to making her come as often as he could, so he’d learned to appreciate her tastes. And this one was pretty basic – no pirates or cowboys or barbarian kings – just himself. Camping. In not-their-backyard.

His eyebrows went up, and he laughed. “Okay. I’ll go in the tent and change. Unless,” and he produced one of his better semi-smoldering glances, “you want to help me?”

Raven smirked back at him, then drew her sunglasses back down. “I’ll help you later. For now, I want to enjoy the sun.”

What she really wanted to do was show off her big surprise to an appropriately prepared audience.

He emerged a minute later, jeans and shirt exchanged for his favorite board shorts, worn and soft and faded blue. Raven loved the feel of them. On him and off him.

She also liked the look of him in nothing but board shorts. Or nothing at all. He’d been ripped as long as she’d known him, but moving to CEO a year ago had actually increased his workout intensity. 

_Stress_ , he’d said. 

_Vanity_ , she’d said. 

_Keeping you interested_ , he’d said.

 _It’s working_ , she’d said.

He flung himself down onto the other chaise and popped open a beer, and if she watched his throat work and admired his abs and his biceps as he sprawled out for her enjoyment, well. She knew just how much he liked this particular bikini of hers. Liked untying the strings on this particular bikini. Goose, gander, and however the rest of that old nursery saying went.

Raven was about to burst from impatience by now, but was determined not to rush. She wanted to savor the moment. So she made the usual small talk, the ‘how was your day, did your meeting with finance go well,’ sort of talk. Then she answered his questions in return. Though her answers were more oblique and glancing than usual because she didn’t want to give up the game by admitting that she hadn’t gone into work today at all. She’d been busy here. 

Which as the boss, she didn’t have to, of course. Privileges of ownership. Specialty, high-end machined tools and parts, made to order. Software along with hardware, if it was needed. And plenty of woodworking tools in the back. Because you never did know what might come in handy.

When she saw he’d made short work of his beer and was setting the empty bottle on the ground, she decided the time was now. The air was still hot, her skin was sticky again and she knew that movement, any movement at all, would lead to sweat. Exactly right for her surprise.

She swung around and stood up, fishing out her cane from under the chaise for support. Holding out her hand for him, she said, “I did some exploring before you got here.”

He took her hand and sat up, committing to the scene. “Exploring? What did you find?”

She led him around the tent and toward the new trellis-walled enclosure, the woven slats threaded through with a cascading spill of metal vines and leaves, creating the effect of a lush garden wall, years in the making. She’d considered playing around with solar tech, so they’d open and close like morning glories, but she’d run out of time. Maybe next year.

“Raven…? What…” he trailed off into confused laughter, but didn’t slow his steps.

“So,” she tugged him up the two shallow steps. “I found this waterfall…” 

~~~~ 

Raven pulled Roan through the opening in the trellis to reveal a whole new small deck, nestled against the back fence and covered above pergola-style. 

He was taking all this in, so lost in admiring the metalwork bower she’d created that he barely noticed when she dropped his hand. Then she turned the handles and water started gently falling from the two showerheads hanging just below the drooping metal leaves above. Two showers separated only by a shallow wooden shelf that held a wire basket of soaps and shampoos.

Her grin was brighter than the last rays of the setting sun. “Waterfall!” she said, holding up her arms game-show-hostess-style.

“This is beautiful,” he said. “Absolutely amazing.” 

He reached out and ran his hand through the water, which he found was warm. “How did you have time to do this in a single day? This was not here when I left this morning!”

“It’s a waterfall,” she replied, her tone gently scolding. “A natural phenomenon in the wilderness where we are camping.”

“Of course it is,” he agreed. But he also knew that she loved bragging about her accomplishments for an appreciative audience, for him, so he just waited. Grinning at her. Because she was still the amazing Raven Reyes, the cocky engineer he’d met while volunteering at a free legal-aid clinic for hopeful entrepreneurs and small business dreamers. Her shop had prospered, and so had they.

She cracked in less than thirty seconds.

“Plumber came on Monday to run the lines and set the catchment basin, which sends it all back to the water barrel. I’ve been working on the frame and the deck in the shop, had it all assembled. So taking it down there and putting it up here today went fast. And Jasper and Emori were here to help, too.”

“It’s an amazing waterfall,” he said. Then he pulled her into the shower spray, his fingers already reaching to pull on her bikini’s irresistible ties.

~~~~

Raven drained the last of her beer from the bottle, the back of her head brushing against Roan’s shoulder. She was sitting between his legs on the chaise, her back against his chest. It was mildly awkward to eat their dinner this way, but a shared desire to stay in skin-to-skin contact overruled the more sensible separate chairs.

With her head tipped back, she could see all the brightest stars shining through the city’s dense light pollution. The sky was so clear tonight that she was sure she could see beyond the glow and even into the deep black of space. “I know it’s not the same as real camping,” she said, “but it’s differently awesome…?” 

“It’s awesome.” He brushed a kiss against her shoulder, reaching around her to slide his empty plate onto the cooler. “Full stop. No conditions.” He drew his hands up along her thighs, slipping under the edge of the loose cover-up she’d pulled on after their shower to settle on her hips. “Just like you.”

She relaxed all the way back into his arms. “Thanks.”

“I still can’t believe you got that whole thing up in a day. And the height of that shelf is perfect, and its size. I assume that’s on purpose?”

He meant it was perfect for sex, fully counterbalanced and anchored against the wall and exactly big enough for her ass and the right height for her to sit on while she wrapped her legs around his waist. “Yep,” she smirked. “I based it off your inseam.”

“You measured my inseam? When?”

“No! You goof.” She laughed gently, shaking her head. “You can bury your inner prep-school nerd as deep as you like, but you keep a card in your closet with your updated measurements for when you send things out to be tailored.”

“Oh…”

She caught his hand and raised it to her lips, pressing kisses to his knuckles. “So I used those. To calculate the perfect height.”

“A worthy use of your skills.”

“Getting off the best ways possible is definitely worthy.” 

“I’m not arguing. I’m admiring.”

“Speaking of admiring, Jasper already texted me twice to ask what you think of the replacement grill?”

“Truth? I miss my old one.”

“You had that since you were in law school! It was, like, a cheap Coleman stove from a big box store.” 

“I know. It was a hundred-percent reliable. I knew exactly how to make it work best.”

“Really.”

He brushed her hair aside with his nose to kiss the side of her neck, his short beard tickling her skin. “I used it to win your heart, didn’t I?”

Raven started to object because that was ridiculous. She hadn’t fallen for him because of his outdoor cooking skills! But then she realized he had a point. It was on a camping trip, far from distractions of work and family and friends, that they’d found the space they’d needed to admit that their feelings for each other were no longer casual. They’d signed the paperwork to buy this townhouse together not long after that.

“Are you going to get mushy?” she asked him instead, the smile she was fighting leaking out anyway.

“Yes.”

“Too much scotch.”

“No scotch,” he protested. “Drunk on you.”

“So, so mushy,” she said, but she didn’t stop her pleased chortle.

“You built an entire outdoor shower just to surprise me. That’s pretty mushy.”

She spun around to face him and raised her hands to his cheeks. Just before she kissed him she said, very firmly, “It’s a waterfall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - "So I found this waterfall..."
> 
> ~3000 words. Better! I'm not opposed to one-shots, but I really am trying for a bit shorter.


	3. I Will if You Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was, "We need to talk." 
> 
> A good subtitle for the fic might be, "Two people who never listen to their Doctor."

“Do I even need to ask what – or who – put that smile on your lips, Reyes?”

Raven looked up from her tea to find John Murphy smirking at her from the doorway to the kitchen of Becca’s mansion. For half a second she thought about playing dumb, but let it go.

Instead she let the happy grin she was holding back spread across her face. “Nope.”

“Is that why you’re up so early? Eating my breakfast toast?”

Raven ignored Murphy’s crack about the toast. Even though she actually **had** eaten what little was left of yesterday’s bread for her own breakfast. “Roan believes in mornings.”

Murphy entered the kitchen, peering around as he headed for the coffee machine, “And where is our royal guest?”

“He and Nate are out stomping around the perimeter, trying to figure out how that guy Emori knows crashed the place.”

“I thought they did that last night as soon as they got back from the dock?”

“They did, but they didn’t find anything. So he wanted to go out again with the daylight. He can’t help with the science, so he’s all about making sure we’re physically safe.”

“I propose an alternative explanation. He doesn’t give much of a shit about the rest of us, but he wants to keep you safe.”

“Same, same. Right?”

“Hmm. How’s your head today?”

“Fine.” This was actually true. As far as she could tell, today was going to be a good day. “All of me is _fine_ , today.”

She flashed Murphy another smile, batting her eyelashes dramatically so that her meaning wouldn’t be lost. Hopefully distracting him from any further discussion of her rickety brain.

Murphy shot her an unimpressed glance from under his eyebrows as he slid a frying pan onto the big range. “Have you told him?”

She stopped batting her eyelashes. “Told him about…?”

“Your seizures?”

Raven shoved back her stool and stood up to carry her dishes to the sink. “No.”

Murphy began briskly whisking together some freeze-dried eggs and water. “Are you planning to?”

She wanted to tell him ‘no,’ and ‘mind your own business, butthead,’ but that was clearly going to be the wrong answer. Instead she tried, “When the moment is right.”

Murphy made a dismissive noise. Then he asked, “Does Nate know not to mention it?”

“No. Why would it come up?”

“Um. Well,” he poured the egg mixture into the hot pan, producing a sharp sizzling sound, “we’re all worried, and we take shifts babysitting you. As you know. And we talk about it behind your back. A lot. So mentioning it to your boyfriend, making sure he’s onboard with nagging you to take better care of yourself, is to be expected, don’t you think?”

“Shit.” Raven's boyuant spirits plummeted to her toes and the toast suddently felt like charcoal in her belly.

“And look!” Murphy pointed his spatula at the window to the lawn. “Here come our noble protectors now.”

“Shut up,” she muttered.

Raven thought about running to her room to hide, but given that her room was, just at the moment, also Roan’s room, it didn’t offer any sanctuary from her current predicament. Maybe, she promised herself, maybe Nate hadn’t said anything.

One quick glance at the tension around Roan’s mouth and eyes as he walked into the kitchen was all she needed to know that Nate had ratted her out. Disloyal bastard.

Patience and discretion were actually some of Roan’s virtues, however, so he didn’t bring it up front of the others. Instead, he and Nate reported that they’d found nothing more to indicate that Bayliss wasn’t alone. Then Raven brightly announced it was really time for her to get to the lab.

“I’ll walk with you,” Roan said.

It wasn’t an offer. It was a statement that hovered uncomfortably close to a command.

Raven smile-grimaced. “Sure. Happy to have the company.”

She gathered her bag and they started across the beautifully manicured lawn, courtesy of the magic of solar-powered robotics. She waited for him to begin.

Instead he just strolled across the sun-dappled green with her, easily matching his longer stride to hers in that annoyingly thoughtful way he did.

Raven finally couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “It’s a nice morning!” she chirped. “Don’t you think?”

“I think we need to talk.” His voice was alarmingly grave.

“About?”

He reached out and lightly touched her arm, bringing her to a halt as he came around to face her. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When I had a seizure in front of you and didn’t have any choice,” she grumbled, staring at the scuffed toes of her boots and wishing they’d all just leave her and the corrupting nanites in her brainpan alone.

There wasn’t a freaking thing any of them could do to get the remains of ALIE out of her head, and all that their hovering was doing was setting her teeth on edge. Having Roan visit had been a break from all that. But now, thanks to Nate’s big blabbermouth, it was more of the same but worse.

“Why would you keep it from me?” He sounded to Raven's ears dangerously close to thinking he had some rights to know.

Her hackles rising, Raven snapped, “Why should I give you more to worry about? There’s nothing you can do to make it better or make it go away.”

“Raven…”

“I have a heart murmur, too,” she interrupted him. “Did anyone share that with you?”

“What?” Now he looked alarmed, and that much more anxious. “What’s a heart murmur? Is the muscle of your heart damaged by ALIE as well?”

She felt like an idiot. So much for keeping him from worrying. She hastened to reassure him, and on this front, with a clear conscience. “I was born with it. A very minor defect. Almost kept me out of the space walking program. But Sinclair overruled them, and a million tests later I’m fine. But, it’s always there. A very slightly greater chance of a heart attack than someone without that particular defect.”

“You’re sure? That doesn’t sound minor.”

“Yes. I’m sure. You can even ask Abby.”

His expression relaxed and he bowed his head at her, very formally. “Thank you for telling me.”

“For giving you more to worry about?”

“For telling me something important about your health. Something you try to keep to yourself so people who care for you won’t make much of it.”

Her ears ringing with _people who care for you_ , people who seemed to include him, she lifted her chin and grinned fiercely, determined to cover over the ache in her chest. Not her heart murmur. Her guilt for not telling him about the seizures herself. Her frustration with her stupid failing body. “Okay. Fine. You got it. I’m a mess. Bad heart, bad leg, bad back. Bad brain.”

“You just told me your heart is a very minor problem.”

“Yes. Comparatively minor.” A quick glance at his narrowed eyes assured her he’d noted the verbal dodge, so she rushed on. “But it sounds scary to people and freaks them out.”

“I’m not freaked out.” He shook his head at her then, a faintly wry smile tugging at his lips. “Even though that’s what you were trying to do.”

“Yes. Yes, I was.” Had she been trying to do that? She actually had no idea. Distraction, maybe. “Congratulations. You passed the ‘freak out’ test.”

“And your back would hurt you less if you’d do Dr. Griffin’s exercises more often.”

“Who the fuck told you that?” Raven exclaimed, even as she realized, “I’m going to break Nate’s stupid fucking face.”

“He’s worried about you.”

“I hate that! It’s no one else’s business! Not theirs, not yours, not even Abby’s. She gives recommendations. I don’t have to take them.”

“Raven...”

She talked right over whatever he was going to say. “And now you’ll worry, too.”

“I was already worried. Just not about the right things.”

Raven discovered that she couldn’t look at his stupid concerned face any longer.

“You have a brilliant brain,” he said. His voice was still so gentle. So caring. So concerned. So critical. “And you aren’t taking good care of it. Nate says Dr. Griffin told you to cut back on your working hours. To rest your brain more, so as not to risk more seizures, and more damage. And you’re ignoring her recommendation on this as well.”

Suddenly furious at the way they were all conspiring to hover over her, the way they were even recruiting her lover into their nanny brigade of well-meaning tyrants, she snapped. “You’re a fine one to talk!”

He had the audacity to look completely bewildered.

“I know you went back to training full time weeks before Abby thought you should. Against her recommendations! After she dug a bullet out of your heart! A bullet that nearly killed you!”

“I…”

“I’ve seen you naked. I know all your scars. The intentional ones, and all the others. But you still assume that any problem can be resolved if you just stand up and wave your sword around -- and I only wish that was a fucking metaphor but it’s not! And then you just dare anyone to come for you! Sure that you’re good enough to win!”

“I am good enough to win!”

He was clearly quite affronted. This pissed her off more.

“So far! And it’s been really close more than once! What happens in five years, or ten? When you’re forty and stiff and just that little bit slower and some twenty-year-old asshole who looks like you used to comes for you? What happens then?”

He blinked. And then he started to smile. A slow beautiful smile that made Raven’s skin heat and her belly flutter. And made all her sudden rage leak away, air out of a popped balloon.

“You’ve thought about what I’ll be like when I’m forty?” he asked, in a voice filled with soft wonder.

“Maybe. A little bit.” She looked everywhere, the trees, the sky, the grass, the mansion and its patios and swimming pool, the early spring flowerbeds, before she finally looked back at him and admitted, “Yes.”

He just kept grinning at her.

“Only to worry! If you got hurt! Or worse!” Raven heard the catch in her voice and rapidly changed course, “It would suck for Skaikru. For the whole coalition. Even though at forty you’ll be the same cocky asshole who always thinks he knows better than anyone else and fights to believe in honor and decency and kindness!” Raven stopped short. This was not where she’d meant to go. “A lot depends on you, too, you know. I can’t be tekspeka without you as commander, I won’t…”

Raven trailed off, haplessly aware that she’d gone and told him a truth she’d fully intended to die with. That she’d imagined him in the future. That she’d imagined a future with him. A future she probably wouldn’t live to see.

So she wrapped her hands in his shirt, hauled him close, and kissed him. Actions always captured their relationship better than any words ever had.


	4. The Cyborg and the Mummy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The paint’s supposed to go where?” Raven asked, staring aghast at the set of solid beige underwear, seamless stretchy panties and a smooth-cup T-shirt-style bra, that Clarke was holding out.
> 
> “Everywhere.” Clarke smiled winningly. “That’s why the seamless underwear. I paint over that, too.”
> 
> “Everywhere? My…” Raven waved her hands in the general direction of her tits and her crotch. “Everywhere?”

“The paint’s supposed to go _where_?” Raven asked, staring aghast at the set of solid beige underwear, seamless stretchy panties and a smooth-cup T-shirt-style bra, that Clarke was holding out.

“Everywhere.” Clarke smiled winningly. “That’s why the seamless underwear. I paint over that, too.”

“Everywhere? My…” Raven waved her hands in the general direction of her tits and her crotch. “Everywhere?”

“Yes. What did you think I meant when I said body painting?”

“I honestly… had no idea. Maybe, like, fake tattoos or something?”

“I sent you a link!” Clarke’s eyes were wide with fond exasperation.

“I didn’t click!”

And now Clarke’s expression was shifting to pleading. “It’s for the hospital charity. There’ll be a dozen artists, each of us with a model. We set up in the park when the hospital fair opens, paint our models, and then at 3pm the judging begins. Professional judges for artistic merit, and a crowd favorite. We set up buckets for people to vote with their concessions tickets for the paint job they like best, most tickets wins, and all proceeds go to the children’s fund.”

Raven raised her brow to its most skeptical and intimidating altitude. “And for this I get to spend the day in a public park in nothing but flesh-colored underwear.”

“Yes, but no! Because it is weird for the models we put on the whole base coat first thing. So it’s not _naked_ , naked. You’ll feel covered and you’ll look covered.”

“Clarke…”

“Come on. You work hard on it and you have a fantastic body, and you know it. And you spend half your days running around in exercise gear showing it off!”

“Which is not flesh-colored underwear! And it’s not half my days! I’m in the lab most of the time,” Raven reminded her. Then she delivered her customary mantra in her usual singsong. The one she used to turn down any social engagement she didn’t want to attend. Which was most of them. “Post-docs do not come to those who do not put in their hours in the lab.”

“Raven.” Clarke shifted into her very best kitten eyes. Which were very, very good. “Please. I already entered us as a team. And it’s good advertising.” Then Clarke sing-songed right back at her, “Illustrators working on commission need advertising and public exposure.”

Raven folded her arms. “Really?”

Laughing, Clarke mirrored her pose. “Yes. Really.”

Raven felt her will cracking. But then she rallied. “What about my brace?” She gestured to her leg. “I don’t want it covered in body makeup!”

“Oh, I’ve got that handled!” Clarke almost purred she was so pleased with herself. “I’ll get you a super basic hinged brace, just for the day. I’ve already priced them on the internet and I can fit it into our supplies budget, and we can clean it up and donate it, or just recycle it after it’s all over.”

“I…”

Clarke didn’t even acknowledge whatever objection Raven was struggling to make. “I know you couldn’t use it for any serious activity, but it will get you through six hours of mostly standing and some sitting. And I’ve got it all worked into my design.”

Clarke was beaming now, exceedingly proud of herself and almost bursting with determined enthusiasm.

Raven narrowed her eyes. “What’s your design?”

Clarke actually squealed with excitement as she dove for her bag and pulled out her sketchbook. “You’re going to love this!” She flipped back the cover to the marked page and held it out. “A steam-punk cyborg. Everyone usually goes with animals or plants, or just wild swirly sparkly patterns, something nature-like. But I’ll trick out the cheap brace to make it look more steam-punky, and then I’ll match the design on your good leg with paint, then carry the theme through everywhere else.”

Raven accepted the sketchbook grudgingly. She already knew she was going to love it. That it was a great idea. That she would look fucking awesome as a steam-punk cyborg.

Clarke’s sketches, once Raven dropped her eyes to look at them, were exactly as fantastic and fantastical as Raven had known they’d be.

But she didn’t want to go down without a fight. “Are these the colors? All these greys and blacks and bronzes?”

“Yes.”

“Boring. Make me red and gold, like Iron Man, but better, and you’ve got a model.”

“Deal!” Clarke held out her hand, and when Raven reached to take it, pulled her into a firm embrace. “Thank you. We’re going to win. I just know it.”

~~~~

The early sun glinting off the parked cars in the street below Raven’s window was so bright it was nearly blinding. Raven recoiled, curling her lip, and let the blinds fall again.

The day of the hospital fair had dawned bright and warm and super clear. No chance of being rained out and thus saving Raven from a day in the park in her underwear.

“Coffee’s ready!” Clarke’s cheerful yodel summoned Raven to the kitchen. To her day as an artist’s model. As an artist’s _canvas_.

A day that turned out to begin with an unexpectedly long walk from their distant parking spot to the main entrance to the fair.

“I know,” Clarke sighed, readjusting one of their many bags of supplies as they huffed their way along the sidewalks. “I know. I should have let you out at the gate with all our gear. It looked closer than this.”

“It’s fine,” Raven said, mostly meaning it. “But you can definitely bring the car around to pick me up.”

Once inside the park gate they discovered that the body-painting tent was not in a distant, discreet corner, as Raven had rather hoped. It was right off the main entrance, just past the finish line for the currently-in-progress morning races and close to the bouncy houses.

Clarke chortled in glee when she saw it. “This is great! We’ll raise so much money this year with this kind of visibility!”

“When it’s your naked ass on display, I’ll be more enthusiastic, I promise,” Raven grumbled.

Clarke ignored her to wave at a busy-looking person with a clipboard. “Harper! Here we are! Parking was horrible, I forgot about the races! Or we’d have gotten here sooner.”

The young woman with the elegant crown of honey-brown braids beamed at them. “No problem. Everyone else is just getting set up. Let me show you which station will be yours.”

Even though the fair wasn’t yet officially open, there were already lots of people milling about outside the body painting area, curiously peering in while they waited for the first of the racers to cross the nearby finish line.

There were already eight or nine other pairs getting settled, and a few empty spots for late-comers like themselves when Harper ushered Raven and Clarke under the tent awning.

“Each team has a table, a stool, a chair, and a big bin with a snap lid,” Harper poked the large plastic tub at their station with her foot, “for all their personal belongings.”

While Clarke was dumping her materials out on their table to get them organized, Raven took advantage of the stool to sit and rest her leg and start getting the measure of the other contestants.

The first team that caught her eye was a striking blond pair setting up opposite Raven and Clarke’s station. A girl with butt-length yellow hair in a heavy braid, the artist judging by the way she was fussing with her brushes, and her frat-boy looking model. Raven assumed he was the model because he’d already stripped down to his basketball shorts, the better to strut his gym-honed body. Raven mentally rolled her eyes over his posing. He was well built, but he also had that faintly bloated look that suggested more beer and carbs and less vegetables and clean grains.

Next to the blond pair was a dark-skinned woman with her long hair done in striking multicolored braids and twists, neatly complimented by her partner’s shaved head. He had his back to Raven, and they were both still unpacking so she couldn’t yet tell who was artist and who was model. Then there were several more pairs of less immediately notable-looking folk, still bundled in sweats and hoodies against the relatively cool morning air as they unpacked their gear.

But at the station next to theirs there was just one person. A tall nervy brunette who had to be the artist, Raven decided, given the way that she was fastidiously organizing and re-organizing her paints and brushes and other tools.

Raven wondered where her model was.

Judging by her thunderous scowl, and the way she kept glaring from her phone to the entrance and back again, she seemed to be quite concerned about the same thing.

Just then Harper called everyone’s attention to the center of their tent for a quick rundown of the day and the rules. They could get started as soon as the MC declared that the fair was open. Their deadline was 3 o’clock, when they’d all go over to the band shell for thirty minutes of posing and judging – artistic merit and popular vote. No props and no masks, makeup and body paint only.

“And may the best teams win!” Harper declared with a happy smile and two thumbs up.

There was a round of clapping and hooting from the contestants, and then a general bustling as they all fiddled about their stations waiting for the signal to begin their work.

“Do you know any of the other artists?” Raven asked Clarke, under cover of the noise.

“Some,” Clarke said. “You do, too. Over there is Lincoln Woods, you remember him, don’t you? From the MFA program?”

Raven swiveled her head, surprised that she could have missed him when she’d scanned the group. Because of course she remembered Lincoln. Who wouldn’t remember him? Even the dead would remember him. Six feet two inches of classically proportioned male beauty, a brilliant smile covering a mischievous sense of humor, and a kind heart. A total package that was really fucking hard to forget.

Finn had hated him on sight, though he’d sublimated it by sucking up to him instead. Which was easy enough. Lincoln was a talented artist, a decorated veteran of the armed forces, and volunteer big brother. He also had the patience of a saint.

“Is he still dating…?” Raven’s question trailed off because she’d spotted Lincoln’s model. The comparatively tiny, lithe and muscular Octavia Blake. She looked like a dancer. Which she was. And a fitness coach and trainer. Which she was. And an MMA amateur fighter. Which she was.

“Yep,” Clarke drawled, looking in the same direction as Raven. “Lincoln must still be dating Octavia.”

“Married her, actually.” The brunette at the station next to theirs spoke up. Then she smiled and held out her hand to Clarke. “Hi. I’m Echo. I worked with Octavia for a while. Lincoln and Octavia got married last year.”

Clarke took her hand and they introduced themselves, Clarke explaining that she and Lincoln had met in their MFA program, but had fallen out of touch more recently. “That’s how Raven and I met, too!” Clarke added.

“You’re also an artist?” Echo looked to Raven, friendly interest in her eyes.

“Nope!” Raven held up her hands in denial. “Grad student. Biophysical Chemistry. But I was dating someone who was in the same program. Ditched him. Kept Clarke instead. Best decision I ever made!”

Raven caught Clarke’s glance and they grinned at each other.

Raven had ditched Finn, right enough. Right after she’d discovered that Finn had been stepping out with Clarke during one of their increasingly frequent post-fight not-speaking and Finn-sleeping-on-the-couch spells.

“We were on a break!” hadn’t sounded any better coming from Finn Collins than it had coming from Ross Geller.

Clarke, in turn, couldn't run fast enough herself, once she’d realized what had happened. They’d jointly kicked Finn to the curb, walked away together and never looked back.

It had also been messy as hell, and hurt like a bitch, and broke Raven’s heart in a million little pieces. Finn had been her rock since they were in middle school, and she’d thought he was her forever family, their temporary rough patch entirely the product of Raven starting up a rigorous graduate program while still not fully healed from the accident that had left her with a permanent limp.

Raven wasn’t as sure about forever any more, but she and Clarke had been roommates nearly five years now, and that was good enough.

Echo smiled and nodded at them, but she was obviously still preoccupied by the empty spot next to her, glancing at the entry to the tent and then her phone and back again, her brow creased with worry.

“Missing someone?” Clarke asked lightly.

“Fucker better not have forgotten, is all I’m saying,” Echo said, a tight smile on her full lips and none at all in her eyes.

And then a man jogged into the tent and straight up to Echo’s station. Literally jogged. In light running shoes and running briefs and a tank with his race number pinned on. A backwards trucker cap held his shaggy brown sweat-drenched hair out of his bearded face, and mirrored aviator shades hid his eyes. He held a water bottle and half of a banana balanced in the long broad fingers of each big hand.

A guy who was tall enough to look Echo in the eye despite her platform sandals that pushed her close to six feet tall herself. Both of them looming over Clarke and Raven, no taller than average, either one of them, in their comfortable trainers.

A very tanned white guy with a lean runner’s torso and broad well-defined shoulders and heavily muscled arms. A guy whose wide and clearly self-consciously goofy grin showed off a mouthful of gleaming white teeth when he ducked his head at Echo and drawled an apologetic-sounding, “Hey.”

There was a loud blast from a fire horn and then a burst of fanfare music and then the booming voice of the MC declaring the 17th annual summer health fair open.

“Okay!” A beaming Harper called out to her artists. “Let’s get started!”

Meanwhile, right next to Raven and Clarke, a clearly furious Echo was hissing, “What the fuck! I asked you not to run the fucking race!”

“You asked me not to run a race if I couldn’t get here on time,” her unrepentant companion replied, pushing her well-ordered rows of makeup aside to set down his water bottles and bananas halves so he could pull off his sunglasses and put them on the table, too. “I got here on time! 51 minutes 32 seconds – beat last year’s time by just over two minutes. Just for you.” He was actually fluttering his eyelashes at her now, to go along with his cheeky smirk.

“You ran the 15k! The very longest race of the morning?” Her whispered hiss drifted closer to a whispered bellow. “This morning?! What the fuck is wrong with you!”

“Nothing’s wrong with me. Obviously. That’s a fantastic time.” The man seemed a bit put out that Echo wasn’t appropriately impressed. He might even have been pouting. Just a little.

Raven was fascinated by the entire exchange.

Echo curled her lips and crossed her arms. “And now you’re dripping in sweat. Can’t start until you’re dry. You complete and utter ass.”

Raven traded a startled glance with Clarke. This was sounding less and less like cheerful banter, or like anything they should be party to, standing there with their mouths hanging open like dim-witted herring gulls.

Echo turned to them, holding out one palm towards the man. “Raven, Clarke, meet Roan the idiot. My stepbrother and my model for today.”

“Uh, hi!” Raven said, automatically thrusting out her hand to the man who was now standing directly in front of her.

“Hello,” he said, turning his full attention to her. “Raven?”

His voice was a rich baritone, a warm burr vibrating across her shoulders. His wide smile was blinding. His eyes, she discovered, were very, very blue. And his hand, for no good reason at all, was warm and dry.

“Uh, yeah.” She had to pause to clear her unaccountably clogged throat. “Raven Reyes. Model.”

His eyebrows rose a little and his smile seemed to her to shift into an interested smirk as he raked his glance quickly over her, head to toe.

So she hastened to add, as coolly as possible, “During the day. Grad student at night. Double PhD. Biochem and physics.” A combo guaranteed to frighten away all but the most foolhardy. Tilting her head in her friend’s direction she said, “Clarke’s the artist.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Reyes,” he said with a formal nod, his smirk – if it had been a smirk – vanishing and his smile back to warmly sincere, “Model by day, biochem and physics grad student by night.”

Raven nodded back, and forced herself to drop his hand. She told herself firmly she only imagined that he slid his fingers away slowly, drawing out the contact between them until the last possible second.

They were at a hospital health fair. There was a freaking balloon arch less than twenty yards away.

And they were both about to strip down to their underwear to be covered in paint and how in the hell had she agreed to this today?

So if he had deliberately stroked her fingers – if she hadn’t just imagined it – he was probably just a player.

_Just look at him!_ she told herself. He owned mirrored aviators. He had on a backwards trucker hat for chrissakes. What had his legitimately and fairly outraged stepsister _just_ called him? Roan, the idiot?

Roan was shaking Clarke’s hand, Echo was glowering at her stepbrother’s head, and Raven realized that most of the other models were already half-stripped-down to their skivvies. She and Clarke had already tossed their purses into their bin, and now Raven bent to the straps on her leg brace.

When she straightened up, brace in hand, the sight of Roan toweling off his – holy cow – astoundingly well-toned torso arrested her, and she froze where she stood. For one mildly hysterical second she actually counted his abs, just to make sure he didn’t have an extra set. He didn’t. But he did have a very well defined Adonis Belt to match the six-pack he was flaunting as he twisted to reach as far behind him as he could. Revealing just how very flexible he was in the process. Far more flexible than many heavily-muscled men were.

Raven exchanged a rapid series of glances with Clarke, who nodded slightly back, mouthing ‘holy shit’ as she cast her eyes dramatically at Roan. Then Raven saw Echo watching them, something between pride and vexation on her face. Echo looked up right at that moment to see Raven and Clarke watching her, which led all three of them to break into giggles at each other. All of them turned at once to look hastily elsewhere so the man who’d made them laugh didn’t know about it.

Raven snuck another sidelong glance at him.

He winked at her.

He knew about it.

It was going to be such a long fucking day.

Raven popped the lid and slid her brace into the bin, then tried a different angle, and a third, and a few more even though she already realized it was hopeless. Her brace did not fit. There was no way the lid would close.

“Is there a problem?”

Roan’s voice drew her attention away from the stupid fucking bin.

“Yeah.” She glanced briefly up at him, dividing her scowl between his concerned expression, his very naked chest, and the stupid bin. “My brace doesn’t fit. I didn’t think about that before.”

“Is it a problem if it just pokes out?”

Raven shrugged. She appreciated, a lot, that he seemed to be sincerely asking, and without any implied judgment. On the other hand, it made her feel petty. “In theory, no. But I hate the idea that it could get bumped or caught on something. Or just get dirty. And I won’t be able to close the lid properly, so everything else – my clothes, my phone, our bags – are just all _out there_ , too. None of it secure at all.”

Roan glanced around thoughtfully. Then he said, “What if we shared bins? We could put all the smaller things in one with a lid, then use the larger packs to hold your brace steady in the other. If we pushed the bins together, the second bin could also work as more buffer. To keep your brace from getting jostled.”

“Uh…” Raven was momentarily speechless.

Echo added, “I keep a few extra sacks around. You could put one over the top. Keep it clean.”

She rifled through another bag, then handed Raven a small nylon stuff sack.

“Thanks.” Raven was too startled by their quick thinking to do more than stand there and accept their help. “Thank you very much.”

Roan had already rearranged the pair of bins, lining them up as a sort of wall between their two stations, her brace now safely propped against the edge of one bin, in the middle of the row.

Feeling a bit dazed, Raven shook out the small sack and neatly swathed the exposed, upright end of her brace, tucking the ends securely below the edges of the bin. Unfortunately, she was a bit overbalanced and she wobbled standing up and might have stumbled, but for Roan’s hand under her elbow, steadying her as she regained her footing.

“Thanks,” she said again, feeling even more flustered than before.

“You’re welcome,” he said dropping his hand as soon as she was stable, adding, “That’s a nice brace. Light and strong.”

“Yeah.” Raven wondered when he learned anything about medical gear. Though she supposed the relationship between good sporting gear and good medical gear wasn’t as distant as it used to be. “I should’ve left it at home and used my old one.”

“We’re not going anywhere any time soon. We can keep an eye on it,” he said.

Raven just smiled and nodded and turned back to Clarke, relieved to break contact. She was also suddenly very reluctant to take her clothes off. She told herself it was because she was chilled. Having not just run 15k. For her the morning air was still crisp and damp under the tent, though she could see from the sun that the day would be hot and bright later on.

Finally, her ass on the stool on her own side of the bin barricade, she kicked off her shoes and then peeled down her jeans. She was fully aware that she looked fine in her own blue tank and beige flesh-toned panties and she firmly ordered her heart to slow down. She was surrounded by eleven other equally awkward people in underwear that matched their own skin tones. She wasn’t alone and she didn’t stand out.

With Raven’s back to Roan and Echo’s station, Clarke began with the base colors on her legs, and Raven gradually began to settle in for the duration.

It **was** very cool to watch the color going on. And Clarke was right, by the time her legs were covered in an undercoat of makeup and then big blocks of bronze and red appeared and Clarke was beginning to draw on outlines for the patterns of her cyborg wiring and gears, Raven really didn’t feel nearly so naked anymore.

While Clarke worked, Raven indulged in some open staring, trying to guess at what the other models were going to become. She would have felt embarrassed about this, except that all the other models she could see were doing the same thing, exchanging sheepish grins that grew into familiar nods every time they caught each others eyes.

At one station a pale serious-looking girl with heavy eyebrows and flyaway dark hair was layering a deep dark blue on a skinny twitching boy with a thin dark beard. He was all arms and legs and sharp angles and warm dark eyes. He kept insisting that it tickled.

At another station, the model, a girl with a pretty smile, had a dramatically deformed hand, twisted and bent with unnaturally long and extra-jointed fingers. A birth defect, Raven was sure. Her artist, a woman with light brown hair in complicated braids, carefully pulled a pale compression glove with snipped-off fingers over the model’s palm, working it deep between her fingers, and then securing the glove with several loops of tape before staring in with the makeup. Raven guessed they were going to work the model’s hand into the art in some central way and her skin needed the extra protection.

While the artist was securing the protective glove, one of those sarcastic-looking guys of indeterminate age between nineteen and thirty slouched over to their table with a tray of coffees, and from under his hooded brows began muttering things that made both artist and model laugh uproariously.

When the artist twisted to reach for her scissors, Raven saw her face. She squeaked a little in pleased recognition. “Is that Niylah? From the uptown gallery?”

“Where?” Clarke looked. “Oh, yes!”

She waved across room. Niylah waved back.

It was impossible for Raven to tell where some of the other pairs might be headed because they were still in the early stages of the work. But fair or not, nothing about them struck Raven as having any particular spark.

On the other hand, the artist with the long blonde hair was using a sprayer to cover her frat-boy with a deep green latex base coat, layering color on in long smooth expert-looking passes. Raven decided they had to be going Super Hero. They both had the flare for that. Which meant they might have the popular kiddie vote locked up.

Her scowl turned to a smirk, though, when Raven realized that frat-boy kept sneaking worried glances at the man behind her, fresh off a run, at least half-a-dozen years older and in scary better shape.

Closer to the main entrance, Lincoln was covering Octavia in suspiciously flesh-toned paint. Raven, remembering the early stages of their romance all too clearly, feared whatever was coming was going to be erotic, and she really hoped they kept the all-ages crowd in mind.

“Lincoln does fantastic work, hyperrealism with pencils and pens,” Clarke said. “Whatever is coming is going to awesome. Nothing obscene or out of place for a family audience.”

“What?”

“I saw you staring.”

“I thought you didn’t keep up with him?”

“His personal life? No, I don’t. But I did go see his last show and sign the book and everything. Even bought a box of note cards.” Clarke looked up at Raven and smiled, sitting back on her heels. “Okay. Fronts are done. I need to get the backs next.”

Raven stood and turned around, and yelped, “Whoa!”

Roan was facing their station while Echo was working on his back. He was covered from his feet to his neck in a pale blue-grey and yellow-tans, with deeper purple shadows already adding extra contour and depth to his well-developed muscles.

“What the hell are you going to be?” she asked.

“I have no idea. I didn’t ask before, and now all Echo will tell me is _it’s a surprise_.”

“You agreed to model without asking?”

“I’m stockpiling favors.” He grinned charmingly. “Never know when you might need something.”

Echo snorted loudly. “You are so deep into debt to me, asshole, you will spend your whole life paying me back and still never catch up.”

Roan ignored this, asking Raven, “And you? What brought you in?”

“Clarke begged. She did her whole pathetic kitten face thing. I’m weak.”

“No,” Clarke said, butting in with a chuckle. “I lured you with a steam-punk cyborg in red and gold. Take off your shirt. I can do the base coat on your back while I wait for your leg to dry enough for the day-brace.”

Raven reached for the hem of her T-shirt, and realized Roan’s gaze had followed her hands. “This feels weirdly intimate,” she said.

“A little weird, yes!” He hastily averted his eyes as she pulled off her tank and, staring unseeing into the ceiling of the tent behind Raven’s left shoulder, asked, “How did you hurt your leg?”

“People don’t usually ask so directly!”

“We’re talking in our underwear, so….” He was looking at her face again and his smile was warm.

Raven laughed, and reminded herself that the bra actually provided more coverage than her favorite bikini top, even if it was the same color as her skin more or less. “Okay. Right. You know those famous college town riots after the big ten school wins the big game?”

He nodded, “Yes.”

“And there’s always some hopeless nerd who was in the library and forgot about the game and tried to walk home through what turns out to be the heart of the riot? And didn’t notice the asshole who decided to do a handstand on his dirt bike as he hit the barricade and plowed into the crowd?”

He shook his head. “No. Not as familiar with that part of the story…”

Raven pointed to herself.

“You were on the dirt bike?” His raised brow and smile were full of good-humored teasing.

“Nice try.” Raven rolled her eyes.

“You were the hard-working student in the library with far more important things on her mind than the outcome of the big game?”

“Who got slammed into a moving car and then crushed into a broken iron fence by an escaped dirt bike? Yep. That was me.”

“Rich asshole on the dirt bike?”

“As it happens, yes. Why?”

“Your brace. That’s at the top of the market.”

Raven’s eyebrows shot up. “You know leg braces?”

He shrugged. “I work in an adjacent field.”

Echo leaned around his shoulder. “He’s being unnecessarily coy. He’s an in-house attorney for companies that insure hospitals. Like this one. For example.”

Roan made a dismissive face. “Which is a very grown-up and polite way of saying ambulance chaser.”

Raven narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at him. “So is this a work favor thing too?”

He nodded as he replied forthrightly, “Yes. And a family favor thing. I’m triple dipping. My mother is on the charity board. I got a list of my choices. This was the least objectionable one. She blackmailed Echo into this, too.”

“Did not. She just asked. It’s a good cause and I was happy to oblige.” Echo looked to Raven. “Pay no attention to him. His mother, my stepmother, is very cool. I like her. Much better than he does.”

“I like my mother,” Roan said. Mildly and not at all convincingly.

Echo snorted softly.

“Better than I like your mother…” he finished, “who is a piss-pot of a human being.”

“Just because she looks for love in all the wrong places…”

“She made a pass at me last New Year’s Eve!”

“Hard to get more wrong than that.”

Echo sounded more droll than dismayed, and Raven was getting the distinct impression that this banter was a well-worn shtick, easy and smooth, any rough edges long since worn away. “How long have you two been related?” she asked.

“Long time,” Echo said with an understanding chuckle. “I was still in elementary school when my dad met his mom.”

“He was her divorce lawyer,” Roan explained. “Not quite reality television levels of absurd, but getting there.”

“Your leg’s dry enough,” Clarke’s voice recalled Raven to the project of the day, “I think we can try the brace now.”

The two of them had made all the possible adjustments as soon as it had arrived in the familiar online company’s shipping box. Not that there were that many. It was a very temporary brace for recovery after minor accidents, and didn’t even allow for full range of movement. There would definitely be no running or squatting or even sitting properly in this brace.

Then Clarke had whisked it away for some ‘touch ups.’ Spraying it bronze and picking out details in scarlet and black. Once she was finished, it looked pretty freaking awesome, especially now that it was strapped on over the base coats and matching the detailing Clarke had already painted on Raven’s other leg.

Raven was turning this way and that to admire the affect, and testing the support, while Clarke squeaked madly in pleasure when a team across from them saw what they were doing.

“Hey!” the artist, a mid-twenty-something boy, angrily called out, “isn’t that a prop violation?”

His model immediately agreed, “Yeah! The rules were really clear on this! No props! No hats, no masks, no canes, nothing!”

“Where’s the girl in charge?” called the artist. “What was her name?”

“Harper!” another artist supplied, looking both interested and concerned by the fuss. “Where’s Harper? Does anyone know?”

Raven wanted – as she so often did when things like this happened – to simultaneously vanish into another dimension AND erupt into fury. Her brace was her brace. As necessary to her life as breathing. No one had any right to try to take it away. And yet there were days when explaining that her brace wasn’t optional and her leg wasn’t going to get better and no she couldn’t just will it away was a burden almost heavier than her leg itself.

Clarke, of course, could be relied upon to erupt into fury for her. But Raven knew from past experiences that this didn’t always go well either. She reached for Clarke’s elbow, and could already feel the tension and energy rolling off her friend. “Wait,” she whispered. “Just wait until Harper gets here.”

As though that had summoned her, Harper came hustling through the tent entrance only to have a babble of voice assault her. Two artists, the complaining one plus another Raven hadn’t even really noted earlier, rushed to her side, their hands waving as they both tried to explain the issue all at once.

Harper looked over at Clarke and Raven, and Raven saw her glance drop to take in the decorated brace on her leg. Harper frowned. Raven’s heart sank.

They were going to be thrown out of the contest, she just knew it. All Clarke’s excitement and hard work and her opportunity to shine as an artist lost because some asshole was going to rules-lawyer them out of the contest, rules written on the casual assumption that of course every model entered would be able-bodied.

“Clarke, maybe, if they let me sit on a stool on the stage, I can go without a brace today,” Raven muttered. “I know it will look weird – a sitting cyborg – but we can make it work.”

“It’s not fair!” Clarke replied, not really making much of an effort to keep her voice down.

Raven scowled at her. Of course it wasn’t fair. Nothing about it was fair. But being made the focus of a scene made her skin crawl, even when someone was coming to her defense.

“Hey,” Harper was saying as she drew close. “So. About your decorated leg brace.”

“Yes?” Clarke said, her chin already thrust out and the light of battle in her eyes.

“I’m afraid it might cross the line into a prop piece. Conferring an advantage no one else has.”

“Could I see the rules, please?” Roan’s arm, covered in shades of pale greys and yellow tans and marked with textures Raven couldn't identify through her haze of mortification, appeared between her and Harper, his big hand held imperiously open. His request was polite enough, but his deep voice had a way of shifting focus onto himself, and turning the mildest of remarks into commands.

Harper backed up a half-step, craning her neck to look up at Roan, who was suddenly quite close to her. He wasn’t that tall, or that big, and Harper was an average-sized woman, maybe even on the taller side herself, but Roan apparently had the trick of taking up a lot of space when he wanted to.

Even when he was nearly naked. A stray thought Raven rushed to banish as wildly inappropriately timed.

“Um, sure.” Harper’s bright smile was forced, and she was clearly finding the entire tense and angry scene completely dismaying. She hustled over to her backpack, tossed aside earlier in a pile of gear near the center of the tent. After a few uncomfortable minutes of searching, she stood up with a relieved, “Aha!” and handed over the many-times-rolled and faintly stained and crumpled sheets.

“I haven’t needed to actually check these in a while,” she said, with a vaguely mortified expression.

After scanning through the pages, and then going back to reread a section, Roan looked up at them all as they clustered around him, Raven, Clarke, Harper, and the two angry artists. He turned the document out toward them, holding the page upright with the relevant section marked by his fingers. “I don’t see anything here that prohibits working an assistive device into the art. Props are clearly identified as headgear or handheld items.”

By then the artist who had originally raised the issue was hovering at Harper’s shoulder. He waved dramatically at Raven’s leg, and his voice was loud with anger as he declared, “But it’s all decorated so that the struts on her device become the struts of her cyborg design! That’s cheating! That’s a prop!”

“No. It’s a clever way to incorporate the device that allows Raven to move freely and securely into the artwork.” Roan dropped his hands, and swayed every so slightly forward, pressing into the angry artist’s space. He remained unflappably calm and somehow dignified, despite wearing nothing but the tinniest of briefs and being covered neck to toe in grey white paint.

“This is the Hospital Health Fair.” His tone shifted into that of one explaining something very simple to someone very stupid. “And this event in particular is to raise money for the children’s fund. Many of the children supported by the fund rely on assistive devices like Raven’s to improve their quality of life and secure a measure of independence. I think they’ll be delighted to see the result of Clarke’s work today. And I'm sure you don’t want to suggest that their needs are props that can be done away with at your whim, just because they’ve decorated them to please themselves.”

“No!” the complaining artist blustered, his voice growing still louder with his dismay, “Of course I don’t! But,” he rallied, finding his outrage, “it still doesn’t keep this decorated brace from being an unfair advantage!”

“I disagree. It’s not against the rules, it’s not a prop, and it’s not an unfair advantage to incorporate it into the design. If it makes your design look less creative by contrast, that’s not the fault of Raven’s brace.”

The artist’s jaw flapped a little as he struggled to find a response to this.

Roan narrowed his eyes and his voice got a little more graveled as he leaned into the opening. “I’m sure the charity board would be horrified to have the fundraiser itself discriminate against the very thing the entire fair is supposed to be in aid of.”

Niylah’s model had risen to her feet as she watched the disturbance, and now she marched over, waving her twisted hand with the long elongated fingers, painted in a positively eerily accurate representation of bark.

“Are you going to complain that my actual real life hand is a prop next?” she demanded, “Say that it’s an unfair advantage in the contest because it’s an unusual shape and size?”

“No!” cried both the complaining artists, clearly horrified by this accusation.

“Her leg brace isn’t any less a part of her,” the girls was leaning in close to the complainers now, more than a hint of threat in her posture, “just because she can take it off at night. It’s not a fucking prop, asshole.”

“Hey, hey! Everyone!” Harper stepped between the angry girl waving her hand that had been transformed into some sort of living tree and the startled artists. “I think I have to agree with…” she pointed at Roan, clearly having forgotten his name. “Scary-looking guy in white.” She turned to Raven. “I’m sorry. It’s just never come up before and … I didn’t think. But your brace is part of you, and it stays, and so do you.”

Raven shrugged uncomfortably. Harper seemed like a nice enough woman. And most people never did think, not until they had to. She knew she hadn’t ever really thought enough herself, until it was her body, and her life, that got all smashed up. “Thanks. Just glad Clarke’s design passes.”

The angry artists tried complaining some more, but Harper pulled them away by the simple maneuver of walking back towards their stations. They followed, one of them waving his hands and ranting, but Harper seemed to be focused now on settling them back down rather than agreeing with them.

Raven turned to look at Roan, to find he was watching her as Echo returned to work across his shoulders. “Thanks,” she said. “Good lawyering.”

“I am a good lawyer. And you’re welcome. It was a ridiculous complaint and I was happy to help quash it. But they should rewrite the rules to be more clear.”

“What?” Raven blinked in surprise, her heart suddenly sinking to the bottom of her belly again.

“There’s an ‘or other decorated items’ clause that if that little twerp wanted to really make a stink he could. A reasonable standard links it to the handheld items clause, but someone looking for a reason to exclude assistive devices or wheelchairs or necessary canes… could probably use that and get away with it if they had an asshole interpreting the rules.”

“Will he see that?” Raven asked, appalled.

“If he has his own copy of the rules. But he seems too scatterbrained for that.”

“What about Harper’s?”

“What about Harper’s?” he responded, a too-blank expression on his mobile features.

Raven realized she had no idea what had happened to Harper’s copy of the rules. “What did you do?”

He glanced at the open bin with her brace sticking out, the corner of his mouth lifted in a small wicked little grin. “Out of sight, out of mind. She agreed to my reading. The girl with the hand got involved. Everyone’s thinking of the children. And he’s a colossal twit.”

“So,” Raven paused as she worked it out in her head, “you just bamboozled them. Lawyerly speaking.”

“Nice ten-cent word.”

“I am a grad student.”

“And I didn’t bamboozle anyone. I offered my reading of the rules in the way I’m sure they were intended, had anyone bothered to think about how to write inclusive rules. It was convincing.”

Raven twisted her lips sourly, thinking of all the times she’d tried and failed to get people to do the same. “It helps to be a dude with a deep voice when you do that.”

“Yes.”

“It won’t matter if you don’t follow through to get the rules re-written from an inclusive perspective.” She let the challenge slide into her voice when she raised her eyes to his.

His smile was victorious. “Then you’ll have to give me your contacts. So I can send you a copy. When I do.”

Raven started to laugh. “Oh, very smooth.”

“Thank you,” his broad grin was infectious and his eyes were actually twinkling as he looked at her. Raven couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually thought that about anyone.

“But I will get the rules fixed. I promise,” he added, his expression shifting into a more seriously earnest one.

And lord help her, she believed him.

They continued to turn and twist as their artists demanded, raising and lowering their arms, dropping their chins, tilting their heads, bending this way and that. Raven found it nearly impossible not to twitch and giggle through the first applications of paint to her armpits, and was terribly aware of Roan’s gaze on her as she did. As a result she was very happy to have her back to him when Clarke started in on smearing the paint across her belly and her tits. And her crotch.

Boxed lunches arrived and they had a short break. Echo and Clarke both took the opportunity to leave the tent to stretch their legs, but Roan stayed to keep Raven company, maintaining a steady flow of soothing chatter about grad school and law school and restaurants and bars around the city. In what seemed like only minutes Clarke was back and the body painting resumed.

Perched on the edge of her stool facing Clarke, who was beginning to work on her face, Raven took stock, again, of the competition. The skinny boy with the blue base coat was now a giant poison dart frog. The girl with the bark hand was a dryad half-emerged from her tree.

Octavia Blake was a muse. Literally. On top of a basecoat that matched her skin tone, Lincoln had painted a flowing Greek tunic, elaborately folded and gathered, draped in flowers and tied with golden ropes. It was freaking amazing. She was amazing.

And the frat boy with the gym body was indeed a gleaming super hero – Oliver Queen, The Arrow.

Raven’s roaming gaze drifted back and she caught sight of the pots of paint next to Clarke’s brushes. “Clarke? That’s all regular colored make up!”

“Yep,” Clarke said, briskly smoothing more foundation color onto Raven’s face. “I’ve changed up my design just a little. I’m going for a flawlessly inhumanly beautiful face on top of a machine body. To heighten the cyborg feel. I’ll be using the border here,” she used the wooden end of her brush to sketch an oval just outside Raven’s eyes to below her lips, “to reveal the machine underneath.”

“What the hell! I was supposed to be a machine all the way?”

“Hush.” Clarke hissed gently. “I’m also drawing attention up toward your already gorgeous face and away from your leg, and helping you impress Roan. It’s a threefer.”

“Excuse me?” Raven whispered, impressed by the misdirection even as she was irritated by the need for it. And at the same time she was both pleased and horrified by Clarke suddenly taking it into her head to play wingman.

“He’s been checking you out all day. You’ve got a tight body but I want him to take one more look at your beautiful face and actually die the little death. Right here. While I watch.” Clarke’s smirk was enormously self-satisfied.

“And why do I want to impress Roan?” Raven asked, trying for as deadly a voice as she could manage while having to hold her face still.

“Because he’s hot, and he’s employed, and he’s for-real single. And he seems to be very interested in you. All four basic requirements check out. And Echo says he’s actually a good guy who’s had some pretty shitty relationships with social or career-climbing types who ended up really dicking him over. So he’s perfectly positioned to meet someone completely awesome like you from entirely outside his current bubble.”

“Are you and Echo actually setting us up?” Raven could only blink her shock and surprise.

“Trying to. Look up at the ceiling. I’m doing your eyeliner.”

“Clarke…”

“Shh. I’m working. How do you feel about me taking down your bun so you just have a high pony, Star Trek style?”

When Raven was finally free to turn around again Echo had nearly finished her own work. She’d transformed Roan into a mummy, dirt and uncannily realistic flesh falling away from the rotted linen strips ‘wrapped’ around his body.

His eyes had nearly disappeared into dark sockets, his beard transformed into dirt clinging to the shiny exposed bones of his skull.

Raven had hardly had time to do more than exclaim in delight at Echo’s work when Harper and some of her helpers arrived to usher them all to the stage for the judging to begin. Harper assured a worried Raven as she passed by that someone would be staying in the tent to mind all the gear.

The models had to fill thirty minutes, posing to show off their artists’ work, backed by piped-in techno music. And the endless blather of the MC, who, fully aware of the fundraising power of the buckets in front of them, kept up nearly an auctioneer’s patter to draw the crowds.

And the crowds came.

Roan, who was to her immediate left, started flexing, drawing more attention to his already attention-grabbing makeup. It was subtle, but he was doing it. Raven could tell. It made his makeup ripple, like the flesh was actually falling away in real time. Tickets began to fall into his bucket.

“Cheater,” she hissed.

“Pose yourself,” he hissed back. “It’s a fundraiser. And you’re supposed to be a cyborg. Stand like one.”

So she tried. Straightening her back and shoulders, raising her chin and titling her head at the movie-approved ‘AI-inquiring’ angle, lifting her arms into a slightly awkward, slightly less natural-looking arrangement. And the first tickets began to drift into her bucket.

“Oh, it’s on now,” she whispered, barely moving her lips.

She hardly heard his answering chuckle over the noise of the music and MC, but she knew the challenge had been accepted.

And then a little girl arrived and asked if she could have her picture taken with Raven. “You’re so beautiful,” she said.

“Of course!” Clarke said. “Just drop a ticket in the bucket and you’re on!”

The rest of their thirty minutes passed in a blur for Raven. The models were lined up in front of the stage, so there was plenty of opportunity to pose for pictures with members of the audience. Not every model drew tons of admirers, and Raven couldn’t decide how to feel about that. It was the point of the contest, but she knew it had to be less than fun for some of the swirly abstract models to watch the line-up in front of The Green Arrow pass them by, or the still longer lines for Roan’s rotting mummy, or her own cyborg.

Raven wished briefly that her face was not her own face. Until she realized that was part of why people loved it. She saw the pictures. The contrast was eerie and spectacular.

At some point it dawned on her that she was the most beautiful cyborg princess to ever hit this fucking planet. Or at least to hit this health fair. She leaned harder into the posing.

When the real ‘artistic merit’ judges arrived they didn’t interfere with the crowds, just paced the line, circled each model, and moved on. Then the music ended and the MC came back on to thank everyone, dismiss the models and call the next band. The scores would be tallied and the winners would be announced at the end of the fair.

Raven was still floating on some kind of euphoria as they walked back to the tent to collect their things.

“I almost wish I could be a cyborg princess,” she said to Roan, who was walking with her.

“Maybe someday you will be.”

“Cyborg or a princess?” she laughed.

“Both? Though,” he tilted his head. “Queen would suit you better.”

“Outrageous flattery will get you just about anything right now.”

“Dinner? With me? After we get rid of the paint?”

“Yes,” Raven grinned at the ridiculous man made up like a mummy who was effortlessly slowing his stride to hers. She also elected not to see Clarke high-fiving Echo out of the corner of her eye. “I’d like that. Very much.”

He picked her up right on time, his hair still wet from his shower, no trace of white paint anywhere on his visible skin. His car was expensive, but not as flashy as she’d feared it might be. He did get out to open the door for her, which was a nice touch, and then he reached in and pulled a file off the dash and handed it to her.

“Here,” he said. “I fixed the language in the rules. I actually cleaned it all up, it was all sloppy, but there’s a sticky tab for the relevant bit about props. Tell me if you think I missed anything. It wasn’t as easy to find language to copy as I’d hoped, so I sort of half-winged it.”

Raven held the file in her hands, too surprised to open it, as she watched him walk around the front of the car and slide into the driver’s seat. His worn jeans and boots and his simple grey T-shirt should have made him look out of place with his sleek black car but he looked as comfortable here as he had on the stage in full body paint done up as a rotting corpse. Where he’d collected enough tickets to come in second in the audience-favorite category.

Raven had come in first in the popularity contest, thanks to Clarke’s remarkable work. And, Raven was positive, the last minute change up on her face. Lincoln had won on artistic merit. Which Raven thought was a crock, but on the other hand she honestly didn’t know how she would have chosen, so she was glad it hadn’t been hers to chose.

“I didn’t think you’d fix the rules today!” she said now to Roan as he started the car.

“No reason to let it sit around,” he responded. “Monday will come, I’ll get busy…you know how it goes. If you think the re-writes will do, I’ll shoot it over to the charity board so they can start their process of approval. It should all be fixed long before next year’s fair.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad to be able to help. But you should read it first, before you’re too happy with me!”

Raven was pretty sure she was already way too happy with him, now that she had discovered that even his mirrored aviators were nothing but a charmingly goofy touch that made her heart beat too fast, but she dutifully bent her head to read the marked passage. The revised language seemed very clear to her, firmly allowing all assistive devices and medically-indicated equipment to be part of the model’s finished art.

He sent it off to his contact on the charity board while they waited for their appetizers, and got a note of thanks and a promise to carry it forward by the time they had worked their way through a shared desert.

“Now I really am happy,” Raven said. “It’s not always this easy to make these kinds of changes.”

“In this case, my mother’s the chair of the event. So I have leverage,” he shrugged. “Because you’re right. It’s not always this easy. But each precedent makes the next one easier.”

“Still,” she leaned a little closer to him across the small bistro table, propping her elbows on the surface and let her gaze briefly drop to his lips. “I’d like to kiss you, if you’d let me.”

“I’d like that very much.”

Raven grinned at him as she leaned forward, lifting her fingers to his jaw to pull him the last little bit closer. Her heart fluttered just a little when he tilted his head, too, just before their lips touched, and her palms grew hot when he followed her as she pulled away.

“So,” she said, sitting back with a grin. “Where are you taking me to dinner tomorrow night?”

His eyes widened ever so slightly in surprise, but when he smiled, his whole face lit up with what she was sure was the same happiness she was feeling. “Anywhere you want to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fic from the prompt list. This one has been mostly done on my computer for months and months, and finally I decided it was past time to dust it off and get it finished.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, [Jeanie205](https://jeanie205.tumblr.com) remains the best and most supportive beta reader and editor a fic writer could have.


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